What do you mean September is over?!

How in the world is it already October?! My days are blending into the next, I can't hardly keep up with what day of the week it is anymore. Is it friday yet?!? :)

I can't wait until the weekend. I just want to hang out around the house, make cookies, bake, finally sew Starla's new blanket I was planning on making her for her birthday but didn't, take down the decorations from Bourbon's birthday party, watch some of the 50 hours of TV shows that I have on the DVR. Fall break is coming, thank goodness. But even those days will be spent catching up on my homework, working on my unit and lesson plans, and going to go get my background check and fingerprints taken so I can graduate.

I need to make Starla's 3rd year check-up, but by the time I remember to do it, the Dr's office is closed. I need to get the boys enrolled into the music lessons I promised they would get to take as soon as school started.

My life revolves around school in one way or another. My UCO stuff, my student teaching stuff, or my own kids school stuff. Tomorrow Bourbon is playing the part of William Clark in the 5th grade Lewis & Clark play, and then we head to the book fair in the library. Starla has school pictures tomorrow at her school. I'm coordinating a pen pal project with a 4th grade class at the boys school to write to the 4th graders in my student teaching class.

Is it friday yet?

Good Night

The joys of teaching

I am learning new things each and every day in my student teaching. My static electricity hands-on group lesson wetn crazy and the kids just wouldn't focus and do what they were told, or stop playing around. It was frustrating. My mentor teacher lectured them afterwards and said we might not be able to do things like that anymore since they couldn't handle it. But the batteries & bulbs investigation the week before went so well, I just assumed this one would too. The principal even poked her head in at the window on the door, and made a comment the next day about how excited she was about my lesson. Thankfully she didn't actually come into the room, or she would have seen it was a disaster. Lol. My mentor teacher gave me an hour the next day to redo the lesson, with modifications, since only one of the 6 groups actually got it done the day before. So, I pulled 4 students to come help me and we demonstrated the 4 activities, one by one, and stopped to discuss them, and to answer the questions about them on the lab sheet. After we discussed each question and were sure we had the right answer, I gave them time to fill in their answers. I was still frustrated to find at least 4 of the students who turned it in only half done, or with completley wrong answers when we did it together in class and even discussed the right answers!!! We have 3 boys, and 2 girls in the class that are just slower than the rest, they have a hard time writing, they don't spell very well, etc. And I try to help them out as much as possible, while still challenging them and making sure they do what they actually can do without help. But sometimes they just don't try. One of the boys, whom is the cutest little thing ever, actually left half his lab sheet blank. After giving them an hour to complete it during the lesson (and basically giving them all the answers), and then giving them about 20 minutes after the lesson to get it done, the teacher informed everyone that if they weren't done, they were coming in at recess to do it. This little boy didn't want to stay in at recess, and so he turned it in, half done. I even asked him as he was turning it it, "Are you sure it is all done?" and he looked at me all seriouse and said "yes ma'am" all cute as could be. And off he went to recess. I had to write a little note on it, and send it home to be signed by a parent since he made an F. The next day after this lesson, I did a magnets lesson with them, but it was just reading orally out of the text, and then doing a worksheet. Then after they were done with that worksheet, they had a static elctricity review. I told them I didn't want one or two word answers, that I wanted complete sentences with complete ideas so show me that they understood the material. One of my slower guys, who is the tiniest kid ever, he's sooo little, got done before everyone else, which was a red flag in and of itself. And I asked, did you write complete sentences and fill out the whole ting? "Yes", and I even told him he should take the extra time he had to just go over it and double check his answers and he told me he didn't need to. He spent the remaining 20 minutes coloring at his desk. I should have checked it right then, but I was getting some other supplies ready for a later lesson. Sure enough, at recess when I checked them, he had left 3 of the answers blank on the magnets part, and then for the 5 questions about static electricity, he wrote "good" on each and every one of them, even though they weren't even questions that would be answered with the word good. So he had to go to detention later that afternoon during the good behavior movie anyways. They have a movie at the end of each month for students that don't have more than 4 hole punches in their behavior cards for the month. Those that do, go sit in detention during the movie. He had 5 hole punches, so I sent him to detention with his science and his science book and told him to redo it. He came back and handed it to me, and I said "Are you sure you got it all fixed?" and he said "yeah." and walked away. I looked at it and not one single answer had ben fixed. Sigh. Really?! Seriously?! So I wrote a little note on it, and sent him home with it to be corrected and signed by a parent. I don't have a bit of problem helping the students who just don't get it, or who need extra time and support learning something. Those kids actually tend to be my favorites over the gifted kids, I don't even know why. But the whole effort thing gets me. If they won't even try, then I get frustrated. Add the fact that they just don't care, and I am double frustrated. So those are my areas to work on right now, how to motivate and get those kids to care. I'm always up for a challenge. :)

I really do love the class. Even the ones that get on my nerves some, lol, I still like them. I'm going to have to come visit them during the end of the year when I'm not student teaching. Just to help out and check up on them. My mentor teacher tells me on daily basis how she wants me to just stay for the year, how much she apprecipates all that I do, how much I help her out. There are some days that both of us are just working our tush off, tag-teaming it; when she is up teaching then I am grading, doing paperwork, getting the supplies prepared for the next lessons, and then we'll trade off and I will beup teaching and she will be doing the grading, prepping and paperwork, and it seems like we just barely get it all done by the time we walk out of the door at 4pm. And I think, how in the world would one person do this?! And I know how, lots of work at home. My mentor tells me she has been so used to doing hours and hours of grading and prepping and paperwork at home, and how nice it has been to have me there so that she doesn't have to take anything home. I think as soon as I can get a student teacher in my room (you have to have taught at least 3 years) then I am going to have one as often as I can, lol. Not touse and abuse them , like some mentor teachers do, I would love to help them to become teachers and let them take over and teach, etc. But it would be nice to have an extra person in there to help! I will definitely take any and all volunteers who want to come in and help! I always tell all my friends and family that I will use and abuse them in the classroom as often as they will let me!! :)

Every friday, the football players and cheerleaders wear their uniforms. I find this totally adorable!!! All of these tiny little football players, and cute little cheerleaders. There is something so wholesome about it, it just tugs at my heartstrings!! Here are some of them from my class.

Anniversary

This blog should really be named "The many different hair styles and colors of Tonya & Alan" Lol.

So the 24th was our 5th wedding Anniversary, although we have been together for just about 10 years now.

We were so young.....

oh how time flies....

Taken just a little over eleven years ago (this was days before I delivered!) Gothmomma was born.....
















How in the world did my cute little chubby curly headed first born go from this......



to this, in what seems like the blink of an eye?!?



Has it really been 11 years?!

TIME OUT!

I couldn't take it any longer. I had to quit my HCG diet for the moment, and have switched to my weight watchers for the next couple of weeks just to get some variety. Then I will hop back onto my HCG diet for one more month, which will be the last time for this year. My goal is to drop 32 more lbs this year, but we will see. I just was getting so tired of eating the same meals every day. I had salad with 4 ozs of chicken on top, a melba toast, and a peice of fruit every single day for lunch for the last 3 weeks just about. I couldn't even eat it most days, because I was so sick of it. I gotta find a way to add more variety to my meals and get creative when I go back on it.

My batteries & bulbs hands on science lesson, although loud, went really well. The kids learned, they figured out what they were supposed to, they got the picture. So I was stoked about today's static electricity lesson, with balloons and such. Pure chaos. The kids didn't want to follow directions, they didn't want to do the work on their lab sheets, they were loud and crazy..... it was very disappointing. My teacher says that maybe we shouldn't do too much with these kinds of things for nwo since they can't do what they are supposed to do. We were supposed to do electromagnets next week with batteries and nails, but it looks like that won't happen. Not only that, but for some reason I can't get it to work, even though I did it last semester in my science class. Ack! But if I can get it to work, I will be doing it as a demonstration for the kids instead, which is better than nothing I suppose.

Tomorrow is mine & Alan's anniversary. 5 years. Although we've been together roughly 10. We are heading to the state fair to see The Black Crows, which is one of Alan's favorite bands. I don't think I've ever seen them live, so it should be fun. We are on the floor though. I'm thinking as tired as I have been lately after being on my feet all day at school, being on my feet all evening at a concert doesn't sound too appealing! :) Oh well, it should be fun.

Although I am enjoying student teaching, I am so done with not having any time. My days are over in a flash, and it's driving me nuts, since I don't get near enough done in a day. I have no idea how I am going to juggle a full time job and my family when the time comes. I know women do it all the time. I did it for years when the boys were younger. But I also didn't have 3 kids then, nor was I very good at housekeeping, nor did I really cook..... I didn't bake then...... I didn't scrapbook.... I didn't sew...... I didn't go to the zoo and omniplex or have mommy friends and play dates........ I didn't get to spend lots of quality time with the kids....... I see so much stuff that is going to get sacrificed in the process, and it makes me sad. :( I'm excited about being a teacher, I just don't like the trade off.

Disney on Ice & the fair

So Sunday, we got off the highway, which is about a block away from the fairgrounds, at about 1pm. But traffic was soo backed up, and parking was soo horrendous, that we didn't even make it INTO the fairpark with the car until about 1:45pm. Disney on Ice started at 1:30pm. But since half of the parking was now swamplands due to the rain the previous few days, parking was CRAZY. So as soon as we turned into the fairgrounds from Reno, the kids and I hopped out of the car and hightailed it into the fairgrounds to catch the show, while Alan proceeded to wait in the long line to park. So we missed the first half hour of the show, which meant we missed the Cars part entirely. The boys were very disappointed. We walked in a few minutes into The Little Mermaid.











Next was The Lion King























And last was Tinkerbell in Pixie Hollow. :)

















The kids loved the show!




After the show, the 3 boys went off to ride rides. We had gotten them the unlimited ride wristbands. Starla & I walked around the buildings. It was SOOOO packed, that it was like being in a herd of cattle, surrounded by people, it was impossible to stop and look at anything! Starla had soaked her pants with apple juice, so she looked like the white trash baby with no pants on, lol. It was pretty hot too. Thankfully she fell asleep within like 20 minutes, and slept for a good hour or so. And double thankfully, I ran into a fellow UCO student teacher, John, that I have had several classes with, who was working at his parent's business booth, and he offered to let me sit down at the booth and take advantage of a fan pointed at me and a sleeping, sweaty Starla! I got to rest a moment, trade stories about student teaching, and cool down, woo hoo!


Starla enjoys a corndog. She squeezed out her whole box of apple juice in her lap, so as you can see she is without pants. If you will notice in later pictures, we bought her a new dress at the fair......



Cooling off.....














Alan got his face tended to and the bear trimming station they had set up. Only at the fair......





Starla got to be a "farmer for a day". The kids love this little town each year, they have such a good time learning about animals and where our food comes from!





Pizza on a stick. You can buy just about any kind of food on a stick at the fair!

Calling all Rockstars!

Bourbon's Rockband Birthday party saturday night was a success!

















Pizza time!






This photo backdrop was hilarious!









Alan had just as much fun as the kids!





We had the disco party lights going. :)




11 years old already! Almost as tall as me! How did that happen so quickly?! Sigh...







Yum! Cake!





Score! Rockband Beatles!!





"I'm with the band....."



The all girl band!





Breakfast the next morning!